Strengthening Healthy Work Environment Outcomes Via Interprofessional Direct Care Champion Roles

To provide an organization-wide, systematic approach to creating and sustaining healthy work environments (HWEs) through frontline interprofessional staff education and coaching engagement.

HWE has been an overarching concept in the organization's nursing professional practice model since 2014; however, few practice settings routinely translated survey findings to improve the work environment's health via local interprofessional direct care team members.

The program used a participatory approach where HWE champions committed to participate in centralized professional development activities and local quality improvement initiatives to bolster the health of area work environments.

Fifty-one champions representing 44 practice settings participated in the professional development program. Mean HWE scores for all standards increased from year 1 to 2, with 15 practice settings seeing categorical improvement. Meaningful recognition and true collaboration were the standards most often targeted for improvement.

The HWE champion role appears to be a promising strategy for engaging frontline interprofessional staff in the assessment and implementation of initiatives to improve the health of work environments.